FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CUTLETS - PAGE 5

There's a certain jewellike quality to capers. In all their piquant glory, these tiny olive-green flower buds that grow wild on bushes along the Mediterranean coast add elegance to foods. Whole or minced capers can be used in sauces, for marinades and are genuine gems for garnishes. The tartness of capers enhances fatty fish and meat dishes. Like diamonds, sapphires or rubies, there's a certain mystery surrounding capers. Unlike these precious stones, however, the value of this condiment has not been fully recognized in this country.

If you like your pork lean and inexpensive, look to the leg. Fresh leg of pork often is one of the best pork buys in any meatcase. One market had fresh pork leg roast in an ad recently for 99 cents a pound. Unfortunately, many people-even those who love lean, low-cost pork-pass up a good buy on a fresh leg because it's too large. People can`t imagine what to do with one, save roast it and eat it for weeks. But, there are ways to work with a fresh leg of pork to provide many different and varied meals-from pork steaks and cutlets to roasts and kebabs for the barbecue.

My oh my. Trend watchers have warned us, and studies and polls have confirmed the warnings. The definition of "homemade" has changed in the family kitchen, and homemakers from coast to coast truly do practice avoidance when it comes to buying and preparing unprocessed ingredients. So what's new, you ask? What's new is a book by television cook Sandra Lee, "Semi-Homemade Cooking" (Miramax Books, $19.95 paperback). If that grabs your attention, the hook is a cover line that reads, "Quick Marvelous Meals and Nothing is Made from Scratch."

All through my childhood, if it was Sunday I knew that Wiener schnitzel or fried chicken was on the lunch menu. And boy, was I happy! I've always loved fried foods, from their beautiful mahogany color and their crunchy coating to the tender, juicy meat inside. Wiener schnitzel gets its name from the Austrian for Vienna ("Wien") and for cutlet ("schnitzel"). It is a thin meat cutlet that has been breaded and fried in the popular Viennese style. Traditionally, Wiener schnitzel is served with a warm potato salad fragrant with white wine vinegar, oil, onions, sugar and parsley.

By Abby Mandel. Special to the Tribune. (copyright) 1995, Abby Mandel | September 17, 1995

It's the end of summer and it's beginning to feel like fall. Cooking should fit into this transitional time. This means that food should still highlight summer produce but begin to taste more substantial. A meal should reflect a little more depth. Within this context, consider this menu for four. Boned and skinned chicken breasts are pounded into a flat, uniformly thick 1/4-inch paillard that, once brushed with egg white and coated with seasoned crumbs, becomes tender and succulent when pan-browned.

Unexpectedly, she sings. The young girl's trembling voice soars above the shouts of quarreling men and the swish of highway traffic outside her crumbling home. In her second-floor living room, where the ceiling leaks water and an old green hopscotch rug stretches near the door, 11-year-old Tamika Nash gently sways to her music. "I'm takin' it step by step," she sings. "Bit by bit. Stone by stone. Yeah. Brick by brick. This ol' road. So many dangers along the way." The halting melody echoes through the windy, graffiti-filled hallways of 3651-53 S. Federal St., the last apartment building left at the Stateway Gardens public housing complex.

When you learn to cook it properly--and are willing to spend the money to buy only the best cuts--pork can be an admirably subtle and lean meat. It can be roasted in its own hearty fashion, with garlic and rosemary. For people with a bit of a sweet tooth, pork can be nudged to the realm of the sublime with raisins soaked in Madeira. This recipe calls for the leanest of pork to prepare scaloppines. The surprise here is the use of coarse mustard, called moutarde de Meaux. The result is a memorable, cruder country taste.

Veal is a marvelous meat for anyone who enjoys the creativity of cooking. It is easy to work with and, coming from a young animal, tender from one end of the carcass to the other. Even more important to a creative cook, however, is the ability of veal to blend with, absorb and enhance the flavors of what is cooked with it. No meat takes better to a sauce. No meat better picks up the flavors of herbs, spices and vegetables to become a dish that is more than the sum of its parts.

I like the mild flavor of turkey. It can take a fair amount of seasonings of all kinds and thus becomes a chameleon. Try coating tenderloins or cutlets with curry mixtures and it's an Indian meal. Mix cilantro and cumin and garlic for a Middle Eastern rub. Or give it a puckery tang with lemon and capers as in this recipe. Teamed with angel hair pasta and a nice green vegetable, it turns into a quick Italian meal. Beverage pairing Match the lemony pasta and turkey with the tropical fruit flavors of sauvignon blanc from New Zealand or a citrusy Italian pinot grigio.